


Gay, European, or Jace & Alec?

by TheIntelligentDesigner



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: 5 times everyone thinks Alec and Jace are dating, Alec is an Idiot, Alec thinks he is straight, Alternate Universe - High School, Jace Wayland Feels, Jace and Alec high school AU, Jace has a normal family sorta, Jace is comfortably aloof, M/M, New York New York new york, Rich Alec Lightwood, bc why not, but some number of times, idk how many times yet, jalec - Freeform, not really malec at all, this started as a thought experiment and turned into an ode to NYC
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 18:17:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19025305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIntelligentDesigner/pseuds/TheIntelligentDesigner
Summary: Everyone thinks Alec and Jace are dating. Alec is very confused.The universe decides enough is enough, and spends an entire day trying to show Alec why he and Jace are the perfect match.





	Gay, European, or Jace & Alec?

**Author's Note:**

> Okay technically I am working on another fic outside this fandom right now, but this idea just came to me and I can't let it go. Alec is oblivious, Jace is literally fine and not a jerk at all. The world knows better than they do, and Jace is just more willing to go with the flow. I think we have another like 4 chapters coming, all about the same length. Just needed to post the first one in order to force myself to finish this.

Every once in a while, the universe decides that some people just need to wake the fuck up.

With about 7.3 billion people on the planet, and who the fuck knows how many on others, it happens pretty rarely. The universe is a big place, and taking even a minute just to focus on an idiot or two or three usually means that something shattering needs to happen _now_. 

Possibly to ensure the cosmic balance remains intact, possibly to ensure that aliens don’t invade Earth, possibly to ensure that love always wins.

In this particular case, the idiots in question were Alexander Gideon Lightwood and Jonathan “Jace” Herondale –– two people who had been made for each other, given every opportunity to find love in each other, and had squandered every chance they’d ever been given through sheer force of will.

It was going to take at least a day to fix _that_ mess.

* * *

 It started innocuously enough.

Alec was at Starbucks, halfway between his parents’ apartment on the Upper East Side and school. It wasn’t a convenient location to get coffee, and it 100% interrupted his daily commute, but somewhere along the way this place had become _his_ Starbucks. He was a regular, a familiar customer greeting familiar baristas –– they’d changed over the last few years, but something about this place always felt like home.

New Yorkers are known for being rude to tourists, dismissive to strangers, aloof to fellow straphangers, and lonely in their singledom. But all people thrive on connection. New Yorkers live in a city full of glass and strangers, and this gives them a skill the small town folk don’t possess.

They can make friends anywhere, and they beat the shit out of a routine in order to find them.

Every New Yorker has a favorite bodega, a halal cart, a Starbucks…where they know the people and the people know them. They tip well and frequently, and they know how to brighten someone’s day with a sarcastic remark about the weather, the MTA, or the dumb (non-regular) customer who just bothered the cashier the waitress the _person_ who’s just trying to get through college or raise their kids or _whatever_.

It’s just about saying “hey, we’re all the same.”

They say people move to Los Angeles with a suitcase and a dream. People move to New York because they know it’s the only place their dream has already been realized. It’s the only city in the world where energy flows up from the tunnels under the streets into the concrete pavement through the soles of their shoes and into their hearts.

People move to New York because their dream has always been to live in exactly _that_ kind of place. 

Alec had been born there, and the dream had accompanied him through every step of his journey.

So, naturally, every morning he got off the 6 train at GCT and walked a block or two over to the Starbucks at 43rd and Third, mobile ordering on the way but never fully taking advantage of the convenience, ensuring he had time to chat with his people.

“Hey, Jessie, you’re here early today,” Alec shouted out over the din of office workers desperate for a caffeine fix before heading to humdrum jobs in the greatest city on earth.

This location was pretty close to the U.N., and Alec knew he’d probably rubbed elbows with a diplomat here every once in a while.

But he was here for the baristas. Jessie was hot. He was a law student at Columbia, and Alec was fairly sure he was trans. He was 100% sure that Jessie was the most brilliant person he’d ever have the pleasure of knowing.

He’d considered asking him on a date once or twice, but then the inevitable inexplicable totally not understood hesitation would arise within him.

He knew, intellectually, that Jessie was male. But he was pretty sure he wanted to ask Jessie on a date because they could have sex the same way Alec had sex with cis women.

And that was all sorts of fucked up. It was disrespectful of Jessie’s gender identity, transphobic as fuck, and at odds with the ally to the LGBTQ+ community he wanted to be.

His sister was bisexual, and who wanted to be that creepy customer who asked a barista on a date when their livelihoods depended on being friendly?

Also, he was probably being transphobic, but Alec had always set that question aside for the moments he was slightly tipsy on a rooftop by himself and could just fucking _think_ and make decisions about who he wanted to be in this world.

He’d clarified many things about himself that way over the years, and had faith that one day he would be comfortable with this aspect of himself, too. In a way that mattered, wasn’t superficial, and was fully respectful of the other people involved in his decision making.

Until that day, he would just interact in the most friendly and _human_ manner possible.

Which, today of all days, suddenly became difficult.

Alec made his way over to the counter, where he could see Jessie putting the finishing touches on two venti iced coffees, setting them in a tray because _that’s the service a regular gets_ , all without looking up. 

“Yeah, Natalie had to take her kid to a doctor’s appointment this morning so I took her shift and –“ Jessie looked up halfway through his rant, looking out past the winding line of waiting customers and toward the sidewalk outside, “Oh! No boyfriend today?”

“Sorry?” Alec blinks. He had no idea what Jessie meant.

Jessie stared. “Umm. Hot tall blonde dude who always stands out there looking ready to murder people? Has gorgeous eyes and the most perfect body on the planet? Your boyfriend?”

Hot, tall, blonde, gorgeous eyes…”Oh! Jace? He’s umm…” Alec swallowed awkwardly. “We aren’t together.” 

Something weird and undefinable flickered across Jessie’s eyes. “Oh. Sorry. I just assumed. You always come together and…okay anyway. Sorry. Umm. Anyway. Have a great day!”

Jessie finished with too much enthusiasm, a clear dismissal, handing Alec the tray of coffees before turning back to prepare other orders.

And like, fine. Sometimes random people in shops or on the streets assume that Jace and Alec are dating. That’s fine. It happens. People see what they want to see. Alec can handle that. He wasn’t sure why everyone assumed he was gay, but he wasn’t super worried about that. He was comfortable with himself, and he knew Jace felt the same way.

There had been more than one occasion in which going along with a stranger’s assumption and pretending they were a couple had benefitted them –– free dessert at Per Se on their anniversary (Alec had no idea why Jace had insisted on blowing his first paycheck at a three Michelin star restaurant and he’d tried his best to plop his father’s credit card down but was unsuccessful –– who was he to deny his best friend? And, at $300 a pop for the tasting menu, the free dessert seemed worth a white lie.)

So like, fine. Jessie wasn’t _exactly_ a stranger, but the encounter fit into the realm of unavoidable stranger interactions close enough that Alec just stuffed his straw into his coffee, raised the tray up enough to drink from his, and walked back to the subway in the unique silence of a busy NYC commute.

 


End file.
